The Range of My Divination
by kmfrank
Summary: A "self"-insert into Neji Hyuuga. Enjoy the mind of a genius.
1. Chapter 1

AN: It's been a while since I've published anything. This has been a work in progress over a few busy years but I think it's decent so I'll put it out there. I'll continue to update it until I run out of new material probably, no guarantees of writing at anything but a snail's pace unfortunately. Enjoy!

Who I was doesn't matter. Reincarnation is a funny thing like that, because to everyone in the world - and a few have known me since the moment I was born - I have always been Neji Hyuuga.

There was a lifetime before that. Those memories were clear, once, but the longer I was Neji the hazier they got. I held onto only a few things, clutched onto random memories like a lifeline.

I thought it a dream, at first. Some kind of odd hallucination. Because I knew the place where I was reincarnated, had heard of it. Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in Leaves. The Shinobi Village of Fire Country.

It was a famous place here in the Elemental Nations. But in my other life, vaguely remembered, it was nothing more than a story. A magazine and a...show? Production of some kind? There were other words, specifics that I couldn't remember.

But I was born to Hizashi and Himiko Hyuuga.

Being a newborn is disorienting. There's darkness, then pressure, then suddenly you have to breathe. Your eyes don't work, and as an adult in an infant body - moments after this realization hits, your first thought is, "_What the fuck_?"

This comes out as some sort of cry, which is the only real sound babies can make.

Then there's warmth again as you're swaddled and held close to someone who must be your mother. You're generally tossed about to and fro to a godawful amount of relatives and you can't see a damn thing so you really have no clue what's going on.

It's vaguely terrifying, being a newborn child. No wonder the little bastards cry constantly.

For weeks, I cried. I was blind, I was helpless, and I couldn't tell anyone what I wanted. Beyond that, there was a vague but constant tingling of what I'd later learn to be a developing chakra system.

The tingling was annoying enough, but chakra is another thing entirely.

The best way to describe the feeling of chakra is that it's a combination of every drug at the same time, because it's all of that and a lot more. Extreme relaxation and aid in meditation. Mental focus, ridiculous acuity, and hyper-awareness. More energy _vibrating_ through you than any person could possibly tolerate - as an infant I stayed up four nights on end just to see how long it took before the feeling actually went away. Later with a bit of practice, flushing away muscle fatigue and enhancing muscles so far beyond what I'd considered humanly possible that it was actually comical.

And that's just what everyone could do. What literally everyone was expected to do, as an Academy Student and genin.

I felt this new sensation from the first moment, felt it growing inside me and twisting around my body as I grew. It was something foreign to me that everyone else took for granted, but I never would. I loved it.

My chakra had stopped twisting around in me when I was around a year old. I had been moving it around inside of me since I was a baby and felt it grow and my body and chakra system accommodate as I did so, but with my memories still fresh from the past life - not the hazy few words that would become vague warnings, so many years later - I did perhaps the first extremely stupid thing of my new life.

I could walk and talk quite well for a one year old. Even though it meant learning a new language, as soon as my sight came into focus I was a damn sponge and soaked it up - and since I'd already been listening for months and repeating words in my head, I had essentially no problems with dialect.

I learned to talk remarkably well, prodigiously well, more than one person had said. I got used to hearing the word prodigy.

But by the time I was one, I knew exactly where I was - the Elemental Nations, and at the time I remembered Naruto. He was the focus of the...story. A book series, perhaps. Hard to say now, in retrospect - but so many years before, I knew.

The mere sight of my father's hitai-ate stole my breath away. I knew it meant he was in danger. My whole family was, my whole clan was.

Then, when I was a year and a few months old, the Kyuubi attack happened.

The Hyuuga were on the side of Konoha furthest from the monster, and I would later learn that the clan compound sustained no damage in the attack. Several branch members were slain, but even casualties were very light compared to what others suffered.

None of it mattered. I felt the chakra before most knew what was going on. It was everywhere, permeating and _infecting_ everything with rage and hatred. A sick chakra, foreign and different and alien that reeked of terror.

I couldn't yell. And even though I was mostly beyond it, I couldn't cry. I couldn't breath. I know I was crying in the face of that immeasurable, oppressive chakra, but I remember little of it. Just the feeling of terror. Of knowing that my death was assured and swift.

Then it was gone. Vanished.

I learned that the Yondaime Hokage sacrificed his life to seal it away - remarkable what people discuss around a silent one year old - and knew that had to be a motivator for me.

I was a helpless infant - Point A. He was a horrifically terrifying monster-killer. Point Z.

If only the rest of the alphabet was so clear. I needed to be strong - Itachi had risen to the point at age fifteen where Orochimaru feared him as an opponent.

There were a few points between A and Z for fifteen years.

After the Kyuubi, even with the motivation it provided, I knew I was going to die. I don't know why I was so certain, now, why I knew it in my gut. But in the months that followed, I can tell you that I spent a month in deep melancholy because I knew I was doomed. Perhaps it was the long road ahead of me, or perhaps some piece of esoteric foreknowledge that I've long since forgotten. Perhaps I knew something of the dangerous life shinobi lead, and was terrified.

I needed a great deal more than to be able to walk and talk. Thankfully, my clan had a somewhat powerful secret - they were legendary for their dojutsu - the famed and feared Byakugan.

Most didn't activate it until they were around eight years old, when they began training in the Juuken.

I thought I knew better. I had the mind of an adult - even if that adult had no damn idea how to use chakra, I'd been manipulating it well inside myself. Pooling it, concentrating it, feeling it flow.

I was an arrogant little idiot.

I forced chakra into the hereditarily overdeveloped optic nerves, forcing more blood flow as well. I felt the veins on my forehead bulge and got almost a prescient sense that my brain, too, was now insufficient - I needed to process the simultaneous 360 degree information, after all.

My vision swam and went black as chakra flooded my brain to compensate. I tried to regulate it, because it was horribly dangerous. I'd heard of two young Hyuuga who'd blinded themselves doing this activation. It stabilized under my control, but it wasn't quite enough to activate.

I flooded more chakra. To my visual cortex and my optic nerve, to my brain. More blood flooded to my eyes to accommodate them and even the veins on my neck bulged noticeably with the pressure.

Too much. I had nowhere near the refined control necessary. It was out of control.

"_Byakugan!_" I said aloud, as some clan members did to focus themselves.

And I saw. Everything. All around, the entire compound was now simultaneously within my sight - it was so disorienting that my one year old self threw up on the floor. I fell to the ground.

My eyes bled, mixing with the vomit. I stopped the flow of chakra, and oh Kami the pain.

I elegantly fell asleep in a puddle of my own vomit. I guess that's not so bad for a one year old.


	2. Chapter 2

I was hailed as both a prodigy the likes of which had never before been seen and a complete idiot.

After a week in the hospital, my chakra exhaustion was remedied along with my blindness, but I would forever retain a lazy eye where I permanently damaged one of the neighboring nerves that controlled some eye muscles.

That didn't really matter much when I had x-ray vision, but my normal vision was perhaps a bit impaired. I'd live.

When I went home, the atmosphere was changed entirely. Even though my mother was entirely against it, my life was subtly shifted to include training in all kinds of elements.

I had to play more with my older relatives - "Ninja" was like "Hide-and-go-seek", various clapping games far more complicated than I remembered were almost a substitute for toddlers sparring, and shinobi children played games like cat's cradle in seconds, competing for fastest times. Even just playing with my six year old cousins, for a not-even two year old was absurd, but I flushed my body with chakra and fatigue was banished. Soon they had trouble keeping up with me.

I learned to throw. Balls. Discs. Sticks. Wooden kunai. Throwing techniques were discussed on a weekly basis and even though it was technically playing, I was expected to get better.

Our clan had a very strict set of warm up routines that _everyone_ did. It got more complicated as you got older, but even the youngest participated in some way. It was a bit like yoga at first, though the addition of chakra of course made a lot of it impossible without. Like everything else, my innate sense of chakra and enhancement - moving it around my body since I'd done from the moment my chakra system started developing - allowed me to excel at it beyond expectations.

Finally, there were simple chakra control exercises. The infamous leaf sticking was taught in the Academy, sure - but we were the Hyuuga clan. We needed control of each of our tenketsu - most immediately our hands and fingers. Before I turned two, working with my eight and nine year old cousins I was folding origami without touching it. I could use a Chakra String from any finger or toe or any other tenketsu on my body to attach to any object and fling it around, or bring it to my hand, or whatever else - I imagine that could be a neat little trick in the middle of combat.

Then there was the rejoicing all around the clan when Hinata was born. Lady Himara, the wife of Lord Hiashi, had been pregnant almost since I could remember, or at least since I could see.

Never again would I see Hiashi smile so broadly as when he introduced the little girl around. He had always before been so reserved, but I remembered clearly how unabashedly delighted he was to hold her in his arms.

She was an adorable baby, curious and happy with ridiculously chubby cheeks. Our parents were together so often - and my father Hizashi on missions so often - that we were raised more like siblings than cousins. Even if I was a prodigy with more in common with adults.

On the Hyuuga clan compound, there is a tree next to a pond that grows very particularly sideways.

Here I balanced, one foot on the pond, the other stuck to the tree, bend forward as instructed to make the damn exercise more difficult. Five leaves hovered between my outstretched fingers, and another was on the tip of my nose.

My father retired from ANBU when I was three, and decided to take a personal hand in my training.

"If you can last the full thirty minutes then you may have adequate control for us to begin our instruction for the day, Neji." He said lightly.

Hizashi Hyuuga was a bit of a dick, and had ridiculous expectations. Probably because I constantly met them.

Upon his retirement he immediately realized that I had far too much chakra - I'd played with it from birth, something shinobi _just don't do_. The developing chakra system of a baby is flexible like that, and it accommodated.

No one could diagnose how much chakra someone had like a Hyuuga - all it took was a glance. I had more chakra than my cousins who were graduating the academy. At age three. And Hizashi mentioned numerous times that Hyuuga typically have a greater than average amount of chakra - though obviously it varied wildly.

Hizashi told me that I'd never master Juuken without ridiculous, heretofore unheard of chakra control. Thus, he combined exercises. And modified a few to be more difficult. Standing on water at a steep angle was ridiculously hard on a lot of muscles, and I had to constantly reinforce them with chakra, and flush them to avoid fatigue - it took a month until I no longer fell in with every flush.

"Very good, Neji, that's your half hour." Hizashi said finally. I used all of the composure I had to bring my legs together and elegantly step forward off of the pond. Then I flushed my muscles with chakra a few times to take away the ridiculous ache they felt and immediately felt better.

I don't know how I functioned in a world without chakra. It really is the greatest thing.

"Now, your instruction has already included the basic elements, the kihon of Juuken. So let us begin instruction in the first twenty-six of the most basic Juuken kata. Once mastered, we will move on to the more intermediate eighty-three kata, and then it is my hope that you can even master all fifty-two of the advanced kata before beginning the Academy. Keep in mind this is a very ambitious goal, and I will of course not be disappointed if it takes you a good deal longer. Most do not even begin this instruction until age seven or eight." Hizashi said with a smile.

Hiashi tried to push Lady Hinata the same way I was pushed. It didn't work out so well.

When she started training at age three, I was four and a half, and had already mastered all of the Advanced kata of the Juuken that my father Hizashi thought would take me until the Academy to master.

Children don't have the kind of discipline that an adult does, and I had already lived to adulthood. I was incorporating hardened chakra into my strikes, to truly craft it into the feared and deadly Gentle Fist style of the clan.

Hinata...was a three year old.

For a three year old she was probably pretty good - great, even. No one in our clan could have compared, since the Branch Family members didn't start their training nearly so early. But with me as one of the more recent examples from the Branch family - and Hizashi born only seconds after his big brother Hiashi - it wouldn't do to have the Main Family look bad.

None of that really mattered, of course. For a time, nothing mattered.

I had a fully developed mind - an adult mind that had lived a lifetime - and I didn't understand why my father had to die.

The timing was cruel. I'd just mastered the kata of the Juuken, and Hiashi had branded me like cattle in return.

For my own safety. For the safety of the Byakugan. I could see the loathing in my father's face. I knew the hypocrisy of the Main Family, especially when there were so many ways to keep our eyes safe - and that everyone in the Clan knew how Hiashi and Hizashi's own mother, from the Main Family, had her eyes stolen on a mission to Water Country. A routine C-rank.

As though it were about safety. My father provoked Hiashi into showing me the true meaning of the brand - control - soon after it was applied to me. He was tortured with the cursed seal for no reason other than as a demonstration, as far as I could tell.

We were subservient because we had to be.

Then Lightning Country, in the midst of peace talks with the Village Hidden in Cloud to finally end the Third Shinobi World War, kidnapped Lady Hinata.

I pieced the rest together from rumors. It happened in the middle of the night, while I was sleeping, and my dad was dead and shipped off to appease the Raikage before I woke up.

Hiashi interrupted the capture and killed a Lightning diplomat. The other representatives from Lightning demanded his head. He gave them father - his twin brother - instead. To protect the Byakugan.

The Cursed Seal renders the Byakugan useless after our death. It's created exactly for this purpose. In addition to controlling us.

I knew that - knew it was a good and noble sacrifice of my father. And yet a part of me hated Hiashi for doing it. Hated how cold he was, how cold he must have always been even if I hadn't always seen it. To offer up his own brother on a kami-damned platter.

I remembered my father's lesson, on the day he was tortured, about our place to serve and protect the Main Family. Perhaps he would have wanted - did want it. He was Hiashi's brother like I'd been raised as a sibling to Lady Hinata, and I knew that I'd raise the Shinigami himself to protect that innocent, doe-eyed little girl.

But damned if I'll ever forgive Hiashi for it.


	3. Chapter 3

"Tell me what you're good at." I said again, the boy dressed in white looking at me terrified.

He underperformed in history, barely passed economics, maths, or physics - which was admittedly ridiculously complicated at times - hardly paid attention to politics and legal conventions, and was a complete trainwreck in basic cryptography and identification - which was drilled into us on the first day as something we would use on literally every report we wrote from the day we became genin to the day we died.

He was _worse_ in ninjutsu and genjutsu. He'd never performed one. They'd taught them for a year out of the three we'd spent so far at the Academy, at least the basics of how to dispel genjutsu, our first actual E-rank genjutsu that altered color perception had just been introduced at the beginning of our final year.

He'd failed every time. A smile on his face.

Taijutsu was, perhaps, his redeeming factor - he was average. A bit worse than most at his bukijutsu, but with both kunai and shuriken he was alright. Redeemable.

"I...am not very good at anything, Neji. That is why I am ranked last in our class." Lee said hesitantly.

I didn't remember much of anything from Before. Before I was Neji. When this whole life I lived was a story.

I knew Lee was my teammate, though. It was important. I'd made sure to remember that much. Maybe the rest would come back if I got to know him.

"There is nothing anyone can do to prevent you from being the worst in our class, Lee." I said with finality. I probably came off as a dick. It was a regular thing.

"I'm also going to finish first in our class." I waited a moment for a reaction, but there wasn't one. "Do you know what that means?" I asked patiently.

"No." He was subdued, cowed almost. There was something very wrong with that, but I wasn't sure why and it bothered me - he was a civilian who couldn't use chakra, and had been beaten down his whole life. I'd probably not be very excitable either.

"The top student and the bottom student are always put on a team together. Konoha tradition." I said. He nodded. "So. We're teammates no matter what at this point. And you need help. So we're going to focus on two things - what are you good at, and what are you terrible at?"

"My chakra is underdeveloped! I cannot use chakra at all. So I am not very good at anything that requires that. But I would still like to become an excellent shinobi!" Lee said finally, perking up a bit at the thought of someone helping him.

That was...

Well. I tried to think of what my life would be - the lone man without chakra, in a world where everyone could use it to do magical things - and it was quickly depressing.

Lee Rokka lived in a world that I very much did not want to live in. He had more depth than I originally thought.

"That would make ninjutsu and genjutsu quite difficult for you, then. Even something as simple as disrupting a genjutsu would be...probably difficult?" I said hesitantly. Lee nodded.

"If you don't mind, my eyes allow me to see chakra - I would like to look." I said. If only because it was weird for someone not to have chakra - even civilians who didn't use it had some. General theory was that it was necessary to keep you alive, though I wasn't sure I believed it seeing as I came from a world without chakra and people lived just fine.

I activated my Byakugan with a thought and a bulge of my eyes, facial veins, and neck veins and arteries, and looked deeply within my classmate.

He was right - he was damaged.

Just as my own chakra system had been expanded beyond what it should have when I played with it as a baby, it looked like Lee's had done the exact opposite - either never fully developed or degraded.

But it was there. And he had chakra, sitting in his belly, and swirling around his pathetically undeveloped chakra circulatory system - albeit such a trickle it might as well have been nothing.

I shut off my eyes and took a gamble.

"Your doctor wasn't a Hyuuga, clearly." I said with an inherited arrogance.

"Umm. No." He replied, not sure what that meant, probably.

"My clan has eyes that can see chakra and your entire chakra circulatory system. Yours is underdeveloped, yes, but it's there. So you're being lazy. You just need practice." I said with finality.

I had no idea. Maybe my confidence would be a bit of placebo effect.

"In the meantime, taijutsu is your obvious strength. I mean comparatively because you obviously haven't been putting in the time to truly _excel _in it." The look in Lee's eye was all I needed to know that I'd been right.

He'd been lacking something - no one believed in him. Now, I talked about him graduating like it was something obvious. He hung on every word I said like I was the Sage of the Six fucking Paths, possessing him with my Rinnegan.

The day of graduation came around, and I'd found myself unable to sleep much.

I wasn't sure why - the thought of not passing was almost laughable. And yet my thoughts inevitably went back to the night of the Kyuubi attack.

When I'd known with dead certainty that I had to get strong. Impossibly strong. Terrifyingly strong.

This was the next step. Maybe it wasn't step B - I'd likely done that with my mastery of basic Juuken forms and a few other things - but perhaps step C. Still so long to go.

I spent the night in the Branch Family Library. A bit of chakra paper - stuffed into an old book as a bookmark - showed that Fire was my primary affinity. That didn't prohibit the use of other jutsu, it just tended to mean that learning Fire jutsu would come easiest, and cost a bit less chakra than others.

Beyond the Juuken - I'd mastered the common Branch Family technique of the Eight Trigrams Sixteen Palms, but further development was _technically_ restricted to the Main Family - and an undeveloped nature affinity, I was nearly powerless. Twelve years, wasted.

I found the introductory fuuinjutsu text at midnight, and feverishly memorized and copied seals and read over principles until I had to rush to my exam.

Everyone with half a brain had read the comprehensive Nara research on the adverse effects of weights on a shinobi's joints. It called into question a timeless training technique for increasing strength and speed, because it clearly wreaked havoc on our bodies.

Admittedly, a good deal of the reason for the research is that most of the Nara on the planet are lazy as shit, and didn't ever want to have to wear weights while running.

Regardless, it took approximately a month after that report for Resistance Seals to be invented. As a twelve year old, I knew how to draw from memory approximately four seals, but I made sure this was one of them.

Running with Resistance Seals was like running through water - or mud, or something thicker or more terrible. Then they made push-ups and pull-ups and sit-ups ridiculously harder. As a bonus, they had none of the career-ending effects of body weights on joints.

Even wearing a Resistance Seal for the entirety of my final year at the Academy, I still won every taijutsu bout without getting touched.

I still surpassed all expectations and beat the chuunin chosen to spar with me for my graduation exam, leaving him unconscious on the floor instead of merely "lasting" a full minute.

I know my arrogance was perhaps overwhelming, but it was at least a little bit deserved. I was _good_.

The written exam was a joke. I'd gotten a perfect ten for shuriken bullseye as well as kunai - single stationary targets weren't something I even bothered with any more, really. The ninjutsu exam consisted of a single jutsu - I knew they'd alternate which of the three they tested each of us on.

We waited to be called upon for the ninjutsu test, so I chatted with my classmates.

"I'm sure you did well on the maths section of the written, Tenten - you've always been excellent at projectiles and calculating paths." She nodded distractedly, clearly running over the basic three Academy jutsu in her head.

Lee, on the other hand, only had to do one - only _could_ do one. And he and I had drilled that damn jutsu every day since the beginning of the year, along with taijutsu. He was nearly as good at it as I was, now. Yesterday we'd done fifty Replacement Jutsus each.

"How about you, Lee?" I asked. He smiled back, happy to be included.

"Daikoku-sensei looked at my paper and told me I only got half the questions right! So that would be fifty percent, I believe." Lee was completely awful at math.

At least he'd gotten the percentage right. That was something.

I prayed he got the Replacement Jutsu. Then they called my name.

"Good morning, Neji. Please perform for us a Transformation Jutsu." Daikoku-sensei said warmly. He'd always liked me, as teachers typically like promising students.

A poof of smoke and I turned into a replica of him. He came over and examined me critically, then nodded with approval.

"Perfect as far as I can see! Well done, Neji!" He presented me with a shiny new head band, a hitai-ate engraved with the Konoha leaf.

While it was a proud moment, a culmination of a great deal of hard work that made me smile back at him, there was a niggling voice in the back of my head.

_It isn't enough to save you. Nothing will be._

We'll have to see about that, won't we?

"I know you're all excited to be here on your last day, and let me congratulate you again on making your first step to becoming shinobi of the leaf village!" There were broad smiles from almost everyone here. I didn't bother.

Easy as the exam was, I nonetheless raked my eyes over the students to make sure Lee was there. He was probably the only one in very real danger of failing.

He sat near the front, and had a very typical stupid grin on his face. I held back any amusement I might have felt, but was glad.

I'd worked with him for more _months_ than I cared to admit to get him capable of a sage-fucked Replacement Jutsu. He could finally do it, though he expended more chakra than he should have. He was also second only to me in taijutsu, and third in weapons. He was well on his way from abysmal to just bad.

I couldn't have been prouder, and almost smiled.

"Whoa Neji, I think you almost showed an emotion there!" Tenten whispered to me, her eyes glittering with amusement.

Tenten teased me constantly. Since we'd started the Academy, she sat next to me every day and constantly made comments about how serious I was about everything.

I rolled my eyes and shot her a wry look from the corner of my eye. She was a friend. She was also quite a passable kunoichi. Especially for an orphan who'd only started shinobi training since the Academy, while I'd started years before.

"Before I assign teams, I would like to announce this year's Rookie of the Year and Kunoichi of the Year - Neji Hyuuga and Tenten! Congratulations you two on an outstanding performance both throughout the year and on the final exam." Daikoku-sensei said exuberantly.

Tenten flushed with his enthusiastic applause and the congratulations of the other students. Several congratulated me as well, but not nearly so many as Tenten - I readily admit I was and am...standoffish.

Or a complete dick, as some would say.

"I assumed you would get Kunoichi of the Year, Tenten." I informed her. She smiled back at me and bumped my shoulder with hers.

"Aww, Neji, that's almost a congratulations! Keep trying, you'll get there!" She said with a smile. I shook my head because the girl would be a pleasure to have around as a teammate.

Certain teams were a tradition. Since there were no historical clan assignments, his team would have the honor of the oldest assignment in the Konoha Academy - the Rookie of the Year, the Kunoichi of the Year, and the Dead Last.

I'd known - even without the advantage of strange, precognizant foresight from infancy - that I'd be on a team with Tenten and Lee. There were really no competitors for any of the titles, really - perhaps Tenten's, but even then she was leagues above the other kunoichi.

I didn't bother paying anything but the barest of attention until my name was called. "Team Three will consist of Neji Hyuuga, Tenten, and Lee Rokka." Daikoku-sensei said pleasantly.

Then, interrupting the assignments, a man walking on his hands kicked open the door to the classroom and launched himself upright.

Well.

That was new.

"I see I'm right on time, as always." He said with a grin. He wore a lot of green - what looked to be some kind of stretchy, skin-tight training outfit that displayed his package in an embarrassingly prominent way. He wore a thick vest, well-traveled, to indicate he was either a chuunin or jounin, and wore his hitai-ate as a belt. He also had orange knee-high socks that he wore with his blue sandals - I wasn't often one to comment on fashion, but even I knew this guy was a disaster.

That wasn't even taking into account his bowl haircut and eyebrows so thick he'd probably break scissors trying to cut them.

"Well, actually Gai, we haven't even finished the team assignments yet. And the other jounin aren't meeting with their groups until after lunch - so you're about an hour early..." Daikoku-sensei said.

"Perfect! Team Three!" Oh. Kami. You've got to be kidding me.

This was a mistake.

"I'm Gai Maito and I'll be your jounin sensei! Follow me to the Fifth Training Ground - you can walk on your hands for an extra challenge, but be there in fifteen minutes! I have lunch waiting." With a casual flip that did - if I was being honest - demonstrate impressive dexterity, balance, and shoulder strength, my new sensei ran out on his hands.

Lee had no trouble attempting to follow him, at only a slightly slower speed. Tenten didn't bother with the ridiculous handstand walking, but followed him out.

The rest of our classmates hadn't said a word, perhaps wondering what their own sensei might be like.

I hesitated.

"Daikoku-sensei, is there any possibility of joining another team...?" I asked hesitantly. He bit back a smile.

"I believe you need to report to Training Ground Five, Neji." He said.

Kill me.

When no one was looking, I flipped onto my hands with some agility - combined with the Resistance Seals I wore, it was absurdly hard.

Maybe Gai-sensei, while completely insane, had a few good ideas.

Well before I came within sight of Training Ground Five, I flipped back to my feet and sorted my hair with a burst of controlled chakra - hair was an excellent conductor of chakra, it was very similar to controlling thousands of chakra strings - so that it looked as though I never walked on my hands.

As a matter of pride, Gai would never know.


	4. Chapter 4

However tasteless or comical he might be, I will never say that Gai-sensei is without skill. The man is an absolute monster. All three of us assaulted him with everything we had - every skill we'd learned - for an hour.

We didn't land a hit. Gai dodged most of my strikes - unlike Lee or Tenten's which he batted away with impunity - but those he didn't, he _blocked_. Which I was fairly sure was impossible, unless he knew Juuken as well.

There was one technique I'd held back - I wasn't supposed to know it. Hours of watching Hiashi practice, however, had allowed me to recreate it at least partially.

Gai was fending off an attack from Lee when I dashed up near him and lit into him with an explosive barrage of Juuken strikes.

I enhanced my speed until I could almost feel my muscles aching from the strain of it - just the limit of my control. My tenketsu burned with the expelled chakra. My right foot and hand slid back until I gave him a sideways profile, then ducked a casual blow from him.

"Juukenpo: Eight Trigrams Thirty Two Palms!" Gai actually smiled when I said it.

"Two Palms!" Gai batted them both away casually.

"Four Palms!"

"Eight Palms!"

"Sixteen Palms!"

"Thirty-two Palms!"

Then Gai knocked all three of us back with nothing but the wind from the strength of his kick - and that's not an exaggeration. He kicked while we were fifteen feet away and it sent all three of us tumbling ass over end another twenty feet.

He'd blocked every kami-bedamned blow. Wove his hand faster than I imagined possible to stop thirty two strikes that hit almost simultaneously.

We refused to give up, all of us, for different reasons, when Gai told us, "Are you sure you don't want to head back to the Academy?"

"I will be a great shinobi even with just taijutsu!" Lee proclaimed, he face swollen from hitting it repeatedly on the training ground.

"I'm not giving up when I'm closer than ever to being the kunoichi I've always wanted to be!" Tenten said with determination, picking herself up off the ground.

I stood up too, without saying anything at first. I saw Gai look at me expectantly. "As strong as you are, Gai-sensei, I will become even stronger, to help protect this village."

We reached him together, and reached out in a futile attempt to attack him - I tried to channel a bit of chakra into my hand, even, for a Juuken strike to his shoulder.

But all of us just collapsed, too tired to move another inch or attack with any semblance of strength.

"That's the spirit! That's exactly what I like to see from my students - hard work! You pass!" He hugged us all so tightly that we couldn't breathe.

Gai was insane. I knew this in my mind, with every fiber of my being. But perhaps I was a bit insane too, because I couldn't help but like him already.

"Dinner's waiting on the top of the Yakiniku Q - my favorite barbecue for a bit of a high protein post-workout meal! You three meet me there! Don't be too late or I'll eat all the short ribs myself." Gai was gone before I could blink, and the three of us remained in a pile on the ground.

It was nearly five minutes before Tenten said something.

"You seemed a lot faster, Neji - it was impressive." She said from one end of the pile of limbs.

"I wear resistance seals. It's like a combination of moving through water and holding weights. Hard to describe, but very effective at making you faster and stronger. You've probably only seen me fight while wearing the seals for the past year. I took it off to fight Gai-sensei, so I was probably...twice as fast as before?" I estimated.

"I watched your graduation test at the Academy, though - you kept it on for that? What am I saying, of course you did. The great Neji Hyuuga." She rolled her eyes at me and I fought back a smile.

"Can either of you actually get up?" She asked hesitantly. I tried to get a surge of inspiration to move from my chakra and found myself faced with an unfamiliar feeling.

I hadn't ever been familiar with chakra exhaustion, before, but now I knew why several of my clan members had mentioned that I should avoid it.

Every good thing I'd ever mentioned about chakra? Just like any drug, the withdrawal from it is a hell of a thing. I felt like absolute shit, and even more so because I'd been beat all to hell from sparring with Gai-sensei.

The tank was empty. If I pulled any more chakra the basic necessities of life - brain, heart - just wouldn't work.

I was forced to actually do things without chakra to help me - it was galling and awful and I wanted my chakra back. Kami, I'd gotten spoiled. Nonetheless I got up with only minimal groaning and helped the others up.

"Come on." I said as they complained even more than I had. "I like Yakiniku's short ribs. And Gai looks like he can eat a lot."

"Today you finally became genin." Gai announced hours later after we ate what was quite possibly our own body weight in assorted grilled meats. "Let's hear what you strive for!"

My teammates looked at me expectantly when Gai turned to me. They'd all heard me on the training ground anyway. "Fine, though this will sound stupid when I put it into words. I remember the Kyuubi attack on the village." Gai raised his eyebrows a bit, but nodded - he probably did some quick mental math and realized how young I must have been at the time.

"I want to be a strong enough shinobi to protect the village from threats like that - threats that can destroy the village and everything and everyone I love." I finished, refusing to look at my teammates.

Gai's ridiculously powerful hand clamped on my shoulder. "Neji! You know, my own father taught me you fight hardest when you're fighting to protect something you love. We usually call that the Will of Fire. I'm very proud that you have that - it's a wonderful goal, and I think you'll make quite the shinobi. But it'll take a lot of _hard work_!"

Lee jumped in, since working hard was actually the only thing he truly excelled at.

"Sensei! I want to prove that I can become a splendid ninja, even if I can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu! That means everything to me." Lee said, a fire in his eyes. I snorted in amusement.

"Did you forget that I worked with you for an entire year just so that you could actually use a simple ninjutsu and graduate?" I said with a bit of a scoff.

Lee looked away for a moment. My eyebrow quirked.

"What? What is that look for?" I demanded.

"Well Neji, while I of course appreciate all of your help..." He began. "The teachers actually requested that I use the Clone Jutsu, to graduate."

I blinked.

Lee couldn't use the Clone Jutsu. He had literally one ninjutsu in his repertoire, and we'd banked all of our hopes on it.

"Then how the hell did you graduate? We gave it a one in three shot and that was your best hope, even by working as hard as we did - you just couldn't do the others. Maybe with another year of chakra control exercises or something we could have figured something..." I looked at Gai, who was smiling like a loon.

Gai, who was a taijutsu master. Perhaps an unparalleled taijutsu master, who focused on it.

"You made sure he graduated anyway, Gai-sensei." I said. Life in Konoha was far from fair - if a jounin wanted a student to pass, that was the end of the story.

"That's right, Neji. I saw how hard the two of you worked, and even though Lee didn't get lucky in this case hard work trumps luck. And even without ninjutsu or genjutsu to fall back on Lee, I think you'll do just fine. If you have a good rival to compete with and keep you on your toes and improve each other, then the fires of youth can keep your blood boiling and you can become a great ninja; without a doubt." Lee was smiling again, and his hand had formed into a fist at Gai's inspiring words.

"I will admit though, you'll need to put in a lot of work." Gai added seriously.

"Yes, sensei!" Lee exclaimed immediately. "Neji! You must be my rival in order to make sure I am kept on my toes!" To add effect, he literally stood up on his toes and pirouetted.

Nope.

Nope. Nope. Nope. That shit wasn't happening at all.

Thank kami I was a shinobi and could lie - Basic Deception was another class Lee had done terribly in. "Well Lee, Obviously I'd love to keep helping out, but as your teammate I was hoping to be more of your friend than a rival."

Lee's face lit up like a man trapped in a desert for a week who just stumbled into an oasis.

"Then Tenten, _you..._?!" She shot me a glare that promised death before answering him.

"Umm, no Lee. What'd Neji just say? We all need to be teammates and friends. Not rivals. I bet there's some genius kid out there besides Neji who could be your rival." She said.

Lee nodded thoughtfully. "Then Neji, we shall be friendly rivals!"

Oh Shinigami's fat cock.

Gai smiled and grinned. "Excellent, Lee - I'll have you know that I consider my Eternal Rival Kakashi to be a very good friend of mine, as well." He gave Lee a thumbs up.

I very much noticed that he said nothing about Kakashi considering _him_ a friend. I decided that I needed to meet Kakashi.

"Alright Tenten, what about you?" Gai sensei said, asking Tenten about her goal. I knew this one - she talked about it constantly. Tenten flushed a bit and smiled.

"I want to become just like the legendary kunoichi Lady Tsunade." Tenten said.

"Lady Tsunade, eh?" Gai considered. "Well, she's great at taijutsu. She has superhuman strength. There's a rumor that she almost killed another one of the Legendary Sannin - Jiraiya."

At his description, Tenten nodded appropriately and became excited. "How can I become that strong?"

"You just need to work hard!" Gai said, giving her a toothy smile and a thumbs up.

I was pretty sure there was a bit more to Tsunade's legendary strength than a bit of work, but I wisely kept my mouth shut. Working hard would certainly get Tenten a lot stronger.

"Well then, now that we're finished with dinner, we've still got at least three hours until sunset. Let's head back over to Training Ground Five and get started, shall we? We'll do some stretches to get the food settled before we really get to work." Gai smiled broadly.

"We're going _back_?" Tenten cried with dismay. Gai was already gone, and I sighed in agreement with Tenten.

Gai outlined what he expected of us that evening and we looked at him incredulously.

"That's just to introduce you to your morning warm up!" He said with excitement.

I needed to learn to be wary any time Gai-sensei smiled, or was excited. It was inevitably a bad thing.

Our "morning warm-up" consisted of stretches, sprints, handstand sprints, and two thousand pull-ups, push-ups, curl-ups, walking lunges, and sit-ups. Some of the sprints and walking lunges were done at top speed around the perimeter of the village, in full view of far too many people who looked at us like we were insane.

I didn't know that we weren't.

Neither of the other two had made it to the end. Tenten barely made it past a thousand on any of the exercises - Lee struggled at fifteen hundred. Chakra could do many things, and made shinobi able to accomplish remarkable feats compared to civilians, but limits existed.

"Well, Neji!" Gai said exuberantly. Twisting my head to glare at Gai hurt. Everything hurt. "Your youthful energy knows no bounds, it seems! We'll have to increase your resistance and speed."

I was going to kill sensei. At night, maybe sneak into his room. Perhaps use poison - I didn't know any off the top of my head, but there were experts for that sort of thing. I could learn, as a last resort.

"Today was mostly to see where you were at, so great work everyone. We'll start every day with that set of exercises. Two thousand reps is a great starting point for shinobi, I think. Okay, break for the day and I'll see you back here tomorrow morning at five for another round of the same thing!" Gai ran off in a blur.

None of us moved. None of us could.

"I...hurt...everywhere." Tenten said in a moan - Gai had pushed her at each exercise, telling her that it would give her strength like Tsunade. Lee just let out a whimper; he had pushed himself even harder to impress Gai.

The next morning was even more grueling, since we were so sore from the previous day.

Gai encouraged us the whole time, but none of us made a particularly impressive showing even when pushed beyond our limits. Gai seemed to be expecting that.

When we finished a few hours later, he had a second breakfast for us and we inhaled it like a lifeline - desperate for the energy because we knew he wasn't nearly done with us for the day.

"Now! I have a gift for you all!" Gai smiled, and I was terrified. At least I was learning. He presented each of us with a package, and when I opened it, I knew I was right to be terrified.

It was a set of arm and leg weights. With matching orange covers.

Tenten looked as skeptical as I did, though Lee grinned at the prospect - he probably wanted to become as much like Gai as possible, which terrified me.

"Gai-sensei, I use Resistance Seals instead of weights. There was a paper put out by the Nara a while ago, about the detrimental effects of weights on joints, if you wear them while running." I mentioned. There was no way he hadn't heard about it.

"Ah, indeed there was. Resistance Seals are an option, I admit - and potentially faster to release in combat, too. But the damage mentioned can be offset by constant application of chakra reinforcement to those same joints, as well as a bit of regular medical chakra - excellent simultaneous training for chakra control." Gai said with a smile and a thumbs up.

That...was an excellent point. Brilliant, even. And not something the Nara thought to address in the paper where they criticized the training method - typical of the lazy slugs.

"You are, of course, welcome to use either - weights or seals. Seals might be better to start with." He pulled out two pairs of bracers for Tenten and Lee, who immediately put them on.

Tenten then looked at me like I was crazy. "You constantly wear these?!"

"That's right, Tenten! I noticed it when I first saw Neji. It's a fantastic training method, though I believe his are a bit out of date." Gai held out his hand expectantly, and the seals on my wrist guard swirled for a moment as I felt him apply a rush of chakra.

He knew a thing or two about seals, it seemed.

The world got at least twice as heavy and thick, around me. By "out-dated" Gai didn't want me to be able to move.

"Now you are ready for the first instruction in my personal taijutsu style!" Gai announced with fervor. "This is a style I have developed over many years of hard work."

I was tempted to count how many times the man mentioned 'work' each day but I knew I would just end up more depressed.

"I have named it Goken, the Strong Fist style. In many ways it is the antithesis of your clan's Gentle Fist style, Neji. But in others it draws much from it." I raised an eyebrow at Gai admitting that he had studied the Gentle Fist style. I'd been assuming, but still - Juuken was a very closely guarded.

As in our clan had killed shinobi - both openly and surreptitiously - for what Gai just admitted. He must have known someone in the family quite well.

"My taijutsu style relies on great speed and strength, where many other styles focus on only one or the other. It incorporates strong hits as well as many holds, blocks, and throws. It is a most deadly style. I do not teach it lightly." Gai added seriously.

It did sound exactly like the antithesis of Juuken. Gentle Fist was almost a dance, when performed alone. It wasn't necessary to hit someone with any strength, with a Juuken strike, so there was a lot of flow and redirection of their own aggression, instead.

I was more excited than I wanted to admit, to learn a bit of Goken and see where it excelled. Perhaps incorporate it into a more personal style - not many Hyuuga used anything more complicated than just the Juuken.

"It is such an honor to learn your great style, Gai-sensei!" Lee exclaimed, seemingly overcome. Tenten, too, nodded.

"Neji," Gai said hesitantly. "I know many of the Hyuuga Clan are hesitant to learn any style besides the Gentle Fist, but -"

"I would like to learn your style, Gai-sensei. It is a foolish shinobi who limits himself. I may specialize in my family's style, but I am not arrogant enough to believe that the Juuken is flawless. You are clearly a taijutsu master and have incorporated elements from a dozen styles into your Strong Fist. Perhaps there are elements I shall incorporate into my own style of the Gentle Fist as I strive to improve it. It is the same reason I perfected the Academy taijutsu style, which many Hyuuga do not." I explained. I didn't mention that I never much used the Academy-taught taijutsu style. Juuken had enough blocks and throws without it.

Suddenly I was wrapped in a hug and made a strangled sound. Tenten giggled hilariously.

"Neji, I knew you had the fires of youth inside of you! That drive to be a great shinobi is inside all three of my precious students - I swear, I will see that each of you fulfills your goals. Lee, you will become a splendid shinobi, Tenten, you a legendary kunoichi, and Neji you'll improve the Juuken into something even greater!"

"That's not really what I strive -" I started to clarify.

"Of course it is, Neji. And with my help you'll do it, too!" Gai said, giving me a thumbs up.

"Alright students, let's go through the kata. There are sixty five of them - which I know sounds like a lot. You'll have them all down in a week, I promise! If not, we'll do twenty laps around the village together. And after we get through the kata today, I have a surprise - you'll all be sparring! First Tenten and Neji, then Lee and Neji. It'll be fun!" Gai said; I could tell that Lee, at least, looked forward to the spar. As though working through sixty kata for a single day could drill something into his head so well that it would stick at all.

Nonetheless, sixty kata, which would inevitably be at least mildly complicated, was an absurd amount to learn in a week. It was absurd to learn it in anything less than a month, really.

I was about to walk home when I noticed Tenten get out ten wooden targets and nearly a hundred shuriken and kunai from a stiff leather backpack she carried. I'd wondered what she kept in it.

Practicing bukijutsu was certainly practical, but that seemed...a bit excessive.

I stuck around for a minute and watched her set up. She nailed the targets into trees at all different heights, angles, and facings. Then she came back to where I was, perhaps forty yards from the tree line.

"Been working on some trick shots. Just kinda fun." She said with a shrug. She threw three, then a fourth shuriken a moment later, bouncing it off one of the others to change their angle.

One of the original three was off it's mark by a few inches, but not a bad shot, really - and I had no idea how she ricocheted them with any accuracy. I did something sort of similar to get odd angles and such, but I just cheated and used chakra strings.

Her method was very interesting - it took a lot of skill.

"Do it again. Try for all ten targets." I said casually, wondering what she'd do. She smiled back at me and did.

Seven shuriken in the initial throw, then two more that ricocheted, then a final one right after - thrown considerably faster than either of the first two - to get the backward-facing target.

I watched it all with my Byakugan and still almost thought she used chakra, somehow.

"That's ridiculous." I just said. "That's amazing." Tenten gave a little bow, and held out a brace of shuriken.

"I can do it, but I have to cheat." I said wryly. I did, releasing all ten with a chakra string attached - the slightest tug of my fingers was all that gave away any movement. My accuracy was a bit worse than hers.

"Ugh, you probably didn't even try, and it took me like three months to get that trick." She said, discouraged.

"Tenten, you're doing something completely different - this is really impressive. You should focus on this. I know Itachi Uchiha was supposed to have been great, but maybe you could steal his title and become the Bukijutsu Queen of Konoha." I said encouragingly.

I knew about Itachi because researching exactly what skills the deadliest shinobi in the world possessed was a habit of mine.

"Plus you can use me for target practice, probably. Good training." I pulled out a kunai and grinned at her.

Eventually, the chakra emitted with Juuken strikes can be refined until it blocks even a samurai's chakra-enhanced blade. I've never had the opportunity, but a budding weapons specialist is probably a good partner for that kind of training.

A week later, of course we hadn't mastered the kata of Goken well enough, so we ran twenty laps around the village - nearly eight back to back marathons. Gai ran them on his _hands_, and Lee and I were forced to join him for as many laps on our hands as we could - I lasted two laps, and Lee lasted one. One and a quarter, perhaps.

Spectators had started gathering immediately - our team was officially a laughingstock.


End file.
